The board was told that although Watson may now be considered at low risk of committing another homicide, he was still assessed at a medium risk of committing lesser forms of violence, and a medium risk of reoffending generally. <\/p>\n
Although Watson had tried to pass off what had happened in the video as a \u201cplay fight\u201d, Parole Board chairwoman Justice Jan-Marie Doogue said it looked to board members to be \u201cvery serious violence\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ben Smart and Olivia Hope disappeared 25 years ago. Scott Watson was convicted of their murders. He has maintained he is innocent and has filed several unsuccessful appeals. Photos \/ File, NZME<\/p>\n
\u2018You need to stay out of trouble\u2019<\/p>\n
In declining to release Watson before another hearing 10 months from now, she said he needed to work on a safety plan, and \u201cYou need to stay out of trouble. We need to see you do that. You need to regulate your behaviours better than you have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Doogue called for further assessments of Watson and his risk factors, and for him to undergo more rehabilitative treatment regarding his attitudes towards violence and women. <\/p>\n
Watson will next be seen by the board in November 2026.<\/p>\n
The precise date of the violent incident captured on closed-circuit video was not disclosed at the hearing, and it was variously described as happening in 2024 or last year.<\/p>\n
Watson said it occurred around the time that the unsuccessful appeal against his murder convictions was being heard by the Court of Appeal, which would place it in mid-2024.<\/p>\n
\u2018I would be in prison forever\u2019<\/p>\n
Parole Board member and forensic psychiatrist Jeremy Skipworth asked Watson what he thought would happen if he committed an assault in the community like the one on the video.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be in prison forever,\u201d Watson replied.<\/p>\n
He said he was embarrassed about the assault and told board members that he had developed strategies to stay out of trouble in future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will always be polite, respectful and just zip it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said if he were released, he would be sticking 100% to his parole conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot to lose if I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Hope and Smart<\/a>. A condition of a life sentence is that he would be liable to be recalled to prison any time he puts a foot wrong after being paroled. <\/p>\n Watson\u2019s counsel, Kerry Cook, said Watson was now looking for a \u201cconcrete pathway\u201d forward with a plan towards release.<\/p>\n \u201cThe punishment period of his imprisonment is over,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would like to come back to the board sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n Hope, 17, and Smart, 21, were last seen stepping off a water taxi in Endeavour Inlet<\/a>, in the Marlborough Sounds, in the early hours of New Year\u2019s Day 1998.<\/p>\n The young friends had attended a New Year\u2019s Eve celebration at Furneaux Lodge the evening before.<\/p>\n They left in the water taxi with a lone man, who offered them a place to sleep on his yacht. They have not been seen since, alive or dead. <\/p>\n It has been accepted that Hope and Smart died at the hands of the lone man in circumstances that amounted to murder.<\/p>\n Watson was eventually identified by the water taxi driver and the lodge\u2019s bartender, Guy Wallace, as the lone man.<\/p>\n Following a three-month trial in the High Court at Wellington in 1999, a jury found Watson guilty of the murders.<\/p>\n Some 27 years later, he remains in prison, where he maintains his innocence and has made several unsuccessful appeals since 2000.<\/p>\n Case referred to Court of Appeal<\/p>\nBen Smart and Olivia Hope. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n